Albania and EU provisionally close three accession chapters

Albania and the European Union provisionally closed the first negotiating chapters in Albania's accession talks at the ninth meeting of the Accession Conference with Albania. The chapters closed were science and research, education and culture, and external relations.

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The closure followed the fulfilment of rule of law benchmarks in May, which allowed Albania set to begin closing its first three negotiating chapters. Thomas Byrne, Ireland's Minister of State for European affairs and defence, said the development showed Albania's and the EU's commitment to continue the country's European integration process, and urged Albania to stay the course on core reforms in the coming months.

The previous Accession Conference on 26 May 2026 confirmed that Albania met the interim benchmarks for Cluster 1, or Fundamentals. That cluster covers the functioning of democratic institutions, public administration reform, the rule of law chapters and economic criteria.

The text says Albania has opened all 33 negotiating chapters in its EU accession negotiations, while agreements reached on individual chapters are not final until an overall agreement is reached on all chapters.

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